She swallowed, trying not to envision her brother’s playful, bright jade eyes. “Victor isn’t here. He … died. But I am here and will continue to be. I vow.”
“No. No, no, no. My son is not dead.” The earl shoved her hands away and fumbled with the linens around him. “Where is he? Why is he not at my side? And who are you? What do you want?”
Victoria bit back a sob and shook her head. “I am your daughter. Papa, ‘tis me. Victoria. Surely you recognize me?”
He squinted up at her, his chest heaving. His brows creased. He shook his head and rasped, “No. Leave.”
Tears stung her eyes and tumbled forth, trickling down her cheeks. She tried to keep her body from trembling as she lowered her lips to her father’s hands and kissed them. “Do not send me away,” she begged. “Please.” She clung to his hand, wishing they could both somehow return to the way things used to be. When she, Mama, Victor and he had all been a family.
Hesitant fingers touched her pinned hair and fingered it. “Victor has your hair,” he murmured in awe. “Flaxen. How very odd. Why do you have his hair?”
“Victor and I were twins,” she whispered. “Surely you remember me, Papa. I am your Victoria.”
He shook his head against the pillows. “No. No, your hair is too long. You are not my Victor. Tell him I will not see anyone but him. Tell him. Now go. Be of use and find him.” He pushed her hands away and shifted against the pillows.
Victoria released another quiet sob and blindly smoothed out the linens around him. Once he died, there would be nothing left of her or her heart. Fortunately, the physicians had assured her he still had at least another six to eight months within him.
The ruby-and-gold ring on her finger glinted within the candlelight. She lifted it to her lips and whispered against the polished ruby the same words she had whispered to it these past many weeks: “Cure him. Please. He does not deserve this. He doesn’t.”
Though she had long since lost faith in the ring’s ability to grant wishes, what else did she have left to believe in? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
All grew quiet and her father’s sleepy, heavy breaths filled the room. Flint, who had been loitering beside the bed, veered back toward the chair by the hearth and hopped onto it. After turning a few times, he settled himself against the cushion and laid his furry head against his paws. He huffed out an exhausted breath through his nostrils and blinked several times, his brown eyes observing her with a sadness that seemed to reflect her own.
Even Flint knew her father was dying.
“Such is life,” she whispered to Flint. “We live, we love, we suffer because we love, we suffer some more because we want to believe there is more to life than suffering, and then we die.”
Flint shifted, closed his eyes and gave way to sleep.
Though Victoria fought to stay awake and watch over her father, her eyes grew heavy and her body weak. She scooted onto the edge of the bed and draped herself beside him, trying not to touch him lest he wake. Closing her eyes, she drifted.
What seemed like a heartbeat later, she squinted against morning sunlight peering in through the open curtains of the window. The chambermaid had forgotten to pull them shut for the night.
Victoria blinked and carefully slid down and out of her father’s bed. She turned back to her father and tilted her head to one side to better observe him. Dust particles floated in the bright rays of light streaming in, illuminating his bandaged face. His exposed lips were parted and his eyes were still closed as his chest peacefully rose up, then down, up then down.
If only she could give him equal peace when his eyes were open. Dearest God. He no longer knew who she was.
Victoria shakily swiped away a long, blond lock that had fallen out from her pinned hair to the side of her face. It would appear the time had indeed come to submit to her father’s last dying wish. That she, Lady Victoria Jane Emerson, be wed before he was unable to attend her wedding.
Her uncle and Grayson had been scrambling to procure her father’s choices in suitors for weeks and would be officially introducing her to all three soon. Though it was not by any means appropriate, considering her father still had months left to live, she knew the sooner she married, the sooner she could become the sort of daughter he deserved. The sort of daughter she’d never been during her debutante years. It was time to admit that the husband she had always wanted and needed no longer existed. And sometimes, though only sometimes, she actually wondered if he had ever existed at all.
SCANDAL FOUR
An old Swiss proverb distinctly cites, “God has a plan for every man.” I confess the Swiss have a tendency to mislead. Because God’s plan is meant for every woman, too.
How To Avoid a Scandal, Author Unknown
Five days later
The onset of evening
WHEN A lady celebrated being two and twenty, and came to the realization that all of her debutante friends had been wed and were now beginning to welcome children, her own birthday became a reminder of all the things she had done wrong. Fortunately, her years of being a spinster were at an end and she could now hold her head up high and join the rest of respectable society.
Victoria shifted in her chair, eyeing her father, who kept fussing with his cravat at the dining table. How she wished upon all that was ever sacred that her father had respected himself more these past nine years. His refusal to remarry after the death of her mother, which in turn had resulted in loneliness laced with unmet needs, had all come at a very high price.
Gathering her fork and knife, Victoria glanced toward her cousin, Grayson. He sat in silence at the farthest end of the table, which stretched the length of the dining hall. Grayson, odd soul that he was, always sat there. No matter how many people were dining. He was like an eagle perching itself upon the highest branch—he always wanted a view of the world. It had also once been her mother’s seat at the table, though she doubted Grayson even remembered.
In honor of Grayson’s weekly Thursday night visit, she had decorated the entire dining hall with bluebells, hoping to make everything more festive. Of course, Grayson didn’t appear to notice or care. He’d been wordlessly staring her down ever since she’d taken him aside and discreetly explained that she now went by the name of Camille. Though she had no idea who Camille was, her father kept insisting that was her name. So Camille she was.
Grayson’s brown eyes met hers from across the dining table. “You shouldn’t be feeding into his delusions. ‘Tis wrong. ‘Tis morbid and wrong.”
Of course it was morbid and wrong, but who was she to argue with a man whose mind was as fragile as his health? In all but five days, she had gone from being nameless to adored. She preferred being Camille as opposed to not being anyone at all.
“As long as he is happy, Grayson, I am happy.” She offered her cousin an amiable smile, refusing to acknowledge that the situation was in the least bit bizarre. She gestured toward his untouched supper. “I hope the peacock is to your liking. One of the physicians recommended it as a weekly regimen. He claims they have documented proof of its ability to cure.”
Grayson leaned forward and lifted a brow. “Peacocks would be extinct if that were true.”
She blinked. She hadn’t even thought of that.
Grayson leaned back against his chair and waved toward his plate. “I am not eating this. And you shouldn’t make him eat it, either. It has a stench.”
“Everything in life has a stench,” the earl interjected with clear agitation. “Even you have a stench. Now eat it. Food is food. And if I